Accolades for Czech artist

A painting of his girlfriend's face - larger than life but flawless even in pitiless close-up - by the young Czech painter Hynek Martinec has been voted the visitors' favourite of all the works on display in the BP portrait award exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery.

The visitors' vote each year is traditionally at odds with the judges' verdict on the competition entries, but this year Martinec, born in Broumov in 1980 and named student of the year when he graduated from art college in Prague in 2003, was also awarded the £5,000 young artist award for Zuzana in Paris Studio.

The competition has already won the artist his first commission in Britain, after he knocked on the wrong door in Chelsea to be confronted by a total stranger.

"Just before he directed me to the address I was looking for," the painter recalled, "he asked what I had in the plastic bag.

"I told him it was a painting to sell to the man I was trying to find. I was already late so I just gave him a postcard of Zuzana in the Paris Studio. When he realised I had painted it, he asked if I could come next week because he wanted me to paint his wife."

The young artist prize was introduced this year as the upper age limit was dropped - and the £25,000 first prize was promptly won by a 59-year-old artist, Paul Emsley.

The exhibition of the 60 winning and shortlisted portraits continues at the gallery until September 16.

The 28-year-old competition attracted a record number of entries this year - a total of 1,870, an increase of 70%, with 20% submitted by international artists.